Global foresight: Anticipatory governance and the making of geo-cultural scenarios

This project investigates how global foresight organizations attempt to anticipate the future, how scenario models are produced, and what they tell us about proposed solutions for tackling urgent global challenges.

The project aims to investigate the practices of future foresight in five selected organizations to advance knowledge on the underlying cultural assumptions and forms of knowledge that make up the basis for scenarios for anticipatory governance.

Key questions are: What types of foresight and scenario models are created in organizations geared to proposing models for anticipatory governance? Who are the professionals generating, legitimating and disseminating these models and what cultural rationalities and epistemic assumptions shape their professional practices? What are the social practices involved in creating, shaping, and diffusing the scenario models? What role does the organizational context play in the production and distribution of scenario models? What forms of knowledge are produced in models for global foresight?

By way of ethnographic comparative analysis the project aims to contribute to mapping out a new field of research at the intersection of theories of globalization processes, epistemic communities of foresight, and theories of governance - the study of anticipatory governance. The project also seeks to respond to questions about the role of theories of social science and humanities in the making of global foresight models.

Last updated:
May 9, 2016Page editor: Lina LorentzSource: Department of Social Anthropology